Abstract
In this chapter we examine the death instinct in perhaps its most widely known and even its most popular forms that are biological urges transmuted into acts of destruction and aggression (Gillespie, 1995). Our research finds that Sigmund Freud’s and Melanie Klein’s works on the death instinct show that it is not comprised of merely the one attribute of aggression. In fact, under both the umbrellas of Sigmund Freud’s posits of individual psychology and Melanie Klein’s object-relations theorising, we find that the death instinct is comprised of a class of instincts, one of which culminates in aggression or a “derivative of the death instinct” (Rycroft, 1968/1995, p. 5). So, this chapter reveals how these classes interact to provide a psychodynamic process of instinctually based thoughts and behaviours, or defence mechanisms including, but not limited to aggression.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Those most familiar with Freud’s work may be aware that he did provide more than one “unassuming sketch” of the mind. In a letter to his friend Wilhelm Fliess dated 6 December 1896 (see Masson, 1985, pp. 207–215) and in his work The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud, 1900/1986, pp. 686–690) he provided what he called a “schematic” picture that was a series of straight lines that depicted psychical processes. It was later that he depicted the structural/topographical relationship between the realms, or provinces, of the mind (see Freud, 1923/1984, p. 363; also Freud, 1933/1988, p. 111). Each “schematic” and “unassuming sketch” differed from each other. We take his 1933 sketch as the basis for our figure. However, we have made one modification that seems more in keeping with both how he described the actual psychodynamics in that paper and more in keeping with the words of the reflections of Ernest Jones (1964), who was Freud’s official biographer and arguably his closest friend.
In Jones’ (1964) chapter Psycho-analysis and biology, we find that the purpose of this intimate relationship is for the super-ego to protect and defend the ego from the outside world’s unpleasant projections as well as from unwanted impulses emanating from the id:
(Marot, “The Beautiful Breast”, 1535–6, cited in Yalom, 1997, p. 63)
Copyright information
© 2006 Adrian N. Carr and Cheryl A. Lapp
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Carr, A.N., Lapp, C.A. (2006). The Death Instinct and Destruction: Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein. In: Leadership is a Matter of Life and Death. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230207875_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230207875_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-54300-7
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-20787-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Business & Management CollectionBusiness and Management (R0)